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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Koki's Teppan and Sushi - Irvine

For those of you not familiar with the term “Teppanyaki,” it basically translates to “iron plate grilled.” In the United States, teppanyaki was made famous by Benihana. Benihana introduced teppanyaki to the masses with fantasticly talented chefs that cooked your meal before your eyes with a dazzling show. There are now much better places to eat than Benihana if you’re in the mood to eat teppanyaki with this kind of show. In my opinion, Koki’s is the best of them in Orange County.

I visited Koki’s the other night as a party of four. We were seated right away at one of their tables that surrounds a massive flat grill. Their tables seat eight people, so if you come in a party smaller than that, you will most likely be seated with other people. They also try and wait until a table is mostly full before having a chef come to the table to cook. We were dining a little late that night, around 8:00, so we had to wait a little while before another couple was seated at our table. To apologize for the wait, they brought us a nice plate of complimentary tempura shrimp and vegetables. The shrimp were so delicious. I don’t know how the veggies tasted because I didn’t try any.

My wife decided to just order sushi. She believes that Koki’s has the best sushi she has ever had in Orange County. She decided to go with the Spicy Tuna Roll and the Philadelphia Roll. As always, it was perfectly prepared and my wife loved it.

(Two pieces were remove prior to photo)

So in looking over the menu, I noticed that the two item combo was only two dollars more that the one item steak meal. I therefore decided to order the two item combo ($24.95) with New York Steak and Black Pepper Chicken. I ordered my meal with Fried Rice ($2.50 extra). Tim ordered the same thing as me. Isabel decided to have a little bit of sushi and exercise Koki’s “split” option with Tim. The split option costs $7.00 extra, but with it you get your own salad, soup, shrimp appetizer and hibachi vegetables.

Our chef arrived. He greeted us with a warm smile and started off by cooking our fried rice. He laid out a mixture of onions, carrots celery and chicken, a giant mound of steamed white rice and some oil. He then gave us an impressive show of his spatula egg flipping skills. He spun that egg around, flipped it in the air, juggled three at a time and then let the eggs split over the side of his spatula as they fell toward the grill. After a little more impressive spatula work and some seasonings, he turned this…

Into this!

When he was done serving everyone their fried rice, which was fantastic by the way, he started in with everything else. On with the show! Huzzah!

ONION VOLCANO WOO HOO!!!!!

After the chef finished his show, we all dove in to our meals. Everything here is fantastic. The steak was done just right and the black pepper chicken had a nice spicy kick to it. They give you both a mustard and a ginger sauce, but I prefer the mustard sauce only. This is definitely a fun place to come for dinner with friends. The prices are a little high, but at least you’re getting dinner and a show!

I agree they do have the best sushi. It's because their sushi chef "Endo" was trained and lived in Japan, where he worked only on the art of sushi. If you have a chance sit at the bar on a slow night he's a great guy!!!

Just so you know Endo no longer works at Kokis, I was told that he retired, but the provider of the fish is still the same, so the quality of the fish is still the best I have ever had.And by the way there is a place called Zenko Sushi off of the 5 and Avery that is fantastic for an all you can eat sushi bar $22.95 great fish quality.